Listed Building Description
BARTON ON HUMBER, QUEEN STREET (east side)
Former National Infant, Boys and Girls school. 1844-5, designed by William Hey Dykes junior of Hull and Wakefield, architect, with Samuel Wilderspin, educationalist and headmaster, for the Church of England and the National Society for the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church. Pickard and Willingham of Barton, builders. Late C19 (not 1935) addition to rear in matching style and materials. Red brick in Flemish bond with stone dressings to front and right return (Infant School), Welsh slate roof. Tudor Revival style. H-shaped in plan; Infant School to right, Boys to left and Girls to centre; later infill to rear centre and short projecting wing to rear left. Single story, 5-bay symmetrical front with gabled central porch and projecting gabled wings. Plinth, quoins. Porch has double door in double-chamfered Tudor-arched surround with hoodmould; pointed-arched inner doorway with chamfered stone surround. Flanking bays have pairs of cross-windows. Wings each have single large 5-light mullioned and transomed window with a hoodmould, and a finely-carved stone tablet above with arms in a sunken panel with a cusped surround (Royal Arms to left, arms of Rev. George Uppleby to right). Inner elevations of wings, facing centre, have a single board door in a chamfered 4-centred arch. Windows have wooden mullions and transoms in chamfered stone reveals; mostly boarded up a time of resurvey. Porch and wings have stone-coped gables with shaped kneelers and gablets at the apexes. Five ridge ventilators with cone finials; roof stack to front right. Side and rear elevations have mullioned and transomed wondows in stone and moulded brick surrounds wioth stone sills. Stone-coped dwarf wall to front carrying cast iron railings with a single top rail, shaped finials and scrolled rear supports (further section of railings stored in school); central gateway has elaborate plain roof trusses in entrance passage and above later suspended ceilings in rooms; three C19 cast-iron fireplaces with shafted surrounds, pointed arches, frieze and cornice. Infant schoolroom has movable partition and later panelled dado at east end, probably inserted to cover traces of former 'gallery' or stepped platform which was a feature of Wilderspin's schools. History. The National School superseded a smaller one superintended by Isaac Pitman, the shorthand inventor. When originally opened it served 100 infants from 2 to 6 years old, 150 boys and 150 girls. It closed in 1978. It is especially notable for its connection with Samuel Wilderspin (1791-1866), the pioneer or 'inventor' of infant education and a figure of international standing. Wilderspin was more closely involved here than at any other school, raising support for it and contributing to the design and layout of the buildings and its grounds to suit his innovative educational approach. He was head of the Infant School and both his wife and daughter taught here with him; whilst here he also undertook training of infant teachers and nursery governesses, and wrote his definitive teaching manual 'Wilderspin's manual for the Religious and Moral Instruction of Young Children'. In 1846 he was given a Civil List Pension for his 'services as the founder and promoter of Infant Schools'. The school building forms part of a fine group of Victorian public buildings in Queen Street and neighbouring High Street (q.v.) R.C Russell, A History of Schools and Education in Barton upon Humber, 1800-1850, Barton, 1960; P. McCann and F.A. Young, Samuel Wilderspin and the Infant School Management, London, 1982; J. French, 'A Victorian legacy', pp. 211-225, in Land, People and Landscapes, ed. D. Tyszka et al, Lincoln, 1991.
Listed Building description, from the offical list (Note that some of the dating, interior features and sources need amending in the light of recent research, but essential details still stand).